The Hostage
by LittleWing
Summary: He hoped that the explosion was Jack coming to rescue everyone in the terminal. Warning for non-graphic sexual situation. No actual pairings.


Disclaimer: I do not own any part of 24.

A/N: This was a story that jumped into my head three weeks ago, and would not let me go. Mild slash warning...more implied than anything graphic. This story also features Derek Huxley's pov ( I have a thing for the minor characters that disappear or killed or are otherwise under used). Enjoy. Almost forgot that it takes place in the first couple eps of Day 5.

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The Hostage

The air in the terminal wasn't thin or stale or being sucked from the room by the vacuum of space, but it may as well have been for all the oxygen Derek Huxley was able to pull in to his lungs. Never in his fifteen years of life would he have imagined that within a matter of hours he would be kidnapped by the man he thought would end up breaking his mother's heart, and then being given back to her without any demands being made of her other than trust—only to end up a hostage to terrorists from he wasn't even sure where. It was all more than he could process all at once.

When the truck belonging to the men he'd followed first blew up Derek's feet had frozen to the tile floor beneath his them in fear. Frank…..Jack had been scary enough when he'd pointed his gun at Derek, but these men scared him even more. The thought "what have I done?" crossed his mind as the terrorists fired their semi-automatic weapons into the air of the terminal. Panic rolled through the area in tidal waves as the caught people dropped to the floor. Their cries of fear and panic rolled over Derek Huxley's ears in a dull roar. This entire scene was unreal to him. Hell, this entire day was unreal to him.

He'd started the day off intent on showing his mom not to trust Frank by proving him to be a liar, and now he'd not only done that but also stepped directly in the middle of someone's idea of a best selling thriller novel. Despite the fear he'd felt when Frank had first grabbed him and shoved him into the helicopter, he did not feel entirely unsafe. Even now, with the guns to his back and the video camera to his face, he hoped that Jack would come to his rescue.

His breath still came in hard pants and he bit his lip to suppress the whimpers of fear that kept trying to escape. If he hadn't followed Frank that morning, he wouldn't be on his knees in someone else's blood—someone just as innocent of anything as he was—waiting to be executed. _'Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if I didn't have to wait for death,'_ he mused, still biting his lips and failing to gain any amount of control over his frantic breathing. _'Breathing wouldn't be a problem if you'd stayed in the car,'_ he scolded himself.

Derek really wasn't sure why he thought that Jack even needed his help—he'd seen up close the things that Jack was capable of doing. He'd even been on the receiving end of Jack's incredibly strong arm. Derek wished that it was Jack's hand tight against his throat, pressing him hard against the side of the van they'd stolen instead of a calloused killer's gun to his head. With Jack he had faith that he wasn't going to be hurt. Despite pulling him into the danger zone, as it were, Jack had done nothing but try to keep him safe; and had in fact given him back to his mother.

And he threw all of that out to help the person whom he'd accused of lying not two hours ago. He should have stayed in the car and let Jack handle whatever was going to happen.

He looked up from the blood stained tiles of the floor when he heard someone moving toward him. The man standing before him had a couple days worth of stubble dotting his jaw and head. For a brief moment Derek thought he saw compassion glint through the older man's eyes before they were stone cold again.

"How old are you?" Andre Beresh asked, not coming any closer than beside the camera tripod.

For a moment Derek could only stare at the lead terrorist. He couldn't believe the question, and if not for the guns he would have given a smartass answer. Why did it matter to them what his age was, they were going to kill him anyway. He looked at the floor for a blink of an eye before biting out, "fifteen."

"Fifteen," Beresh repeated, his accent softening for a moment. "Try to control your breathing. Slow down."

Carefully Derek forced his mind and lungs to slow down. He pulled a ragged breath in through his nose, held it a beat and released it in one steady, slow puff from his nose. He repeated the action a couple more times, effectively calming his nearly hyperventilating lungs.

Andre smiled. "See. Better."

"Please don't kill me," he pleaded with the man before him; Beresh's smile faded to a scowl. Neither broke eye contact nor made a sound for a long moment.

Fear once again shot through the teen as Andre, still staring at him, smiled. Before the shudder threatening to violently make its way down Derek's spine could shimmer through him, Beresh pulled the black ski mask he wore before the camera over his face and stalked toward the teen. Crouching before his teenaged hostage, Andre Beresh smiled once again.

Derek swallowed hard at a glob of spit that had pooled in his mouth as he waited for the backhand or the gunshot that was to come. A rough hand cupped his cheek almost gently, causing him to start at the unexpected action. His wide blue eyes stared, shocked, into the green eyes of his captor. In rough arcs Beresh traced Derek's cheekbone with the pad of his thumb. Derek closed his eyes and silently began to plead for Beresh to just shoot him in front of the camera and everyone, and not molest him as well.

"Such soft skin," Andre murmured, leaning closer to the teen's face. With one more swipe of his rough thumb against the boy's face, Andre slid his hand over Derek's ear and deep into the dirty blond locks hanging loose at the side of his head. "How soft and fine would this be if it were cleaned up and cared for?" Beresh whispered, accent thickening slightly, into Derek's face—leaning in further so their foreheads were almost touching.

In an instant the hand tugging carefully at his hair was gone and his tormentor's presence was gone. Daring to open his eyes, Derek saw only the video camera and huddle of hostages before him. A sigh of relief nearly escaped the teen that the man had stopped his unwanted touches.

A boot scuffed the floor behind him and the fact that someone was still positioned behind him with a weapon ready to kill him in less than…he wasn't sure how many minutes were left before he was just another body to be dragged away and tossed onto a pile somewhere. He scanned what he could of the room once more for the man who was in charge of the terrorists pacing the terminal. There was no sign of him.

A sick feeling crept into the pit of Derek's already churning stomach at the sudden feeling as though someone where behind him slammed through him. There was more than one person behind him—he could feel it. There had been one man just behind him; standing just in sight of the corner of his eye. The presence he felt was directly behind him.

He gasped and nearly lost control of his breathing again when cool fingers wrapped around the plastic cuffs keeping his hands behind his back, and pulled him back, awkwardly, into the body behind him. Beresh's free hand crept up the back of Derek's denim jacket and back down in a firm stroke. "You don't look fifteen," Andre all but grunted into Derek's ear—his warm breath puffing through thick strands of the boy's hair, "more like seventeen…maybe even eighteen." The hand smoothly ran up the back of the jacket again and continued over his shoulder.

The hand's movements halted in the center of his chest. Behind him Beresh shifted, moving their bodies closer together. Derek tried to bite his lip against the hiss wanting to escape him at the strain the awkward position put on his young body, but could not. His knees begged him to kick his long legs out from under him to sit on his ass, but the hold Andre had on his body made that impossible.

With his back resting fully against his captor—head close to laying on the man's jacket encased shoulder—Derek tried to block out the breath that was scorching against his neck and the hand that was now finishing its path down his t-shirt covered chest. Finger tips pressed hard against the fabric biting the tender skin beneath it. Derek didn't dare breathe.

"Please," he let out in a puff of breath, "don't."

"You're strong for your age," Beresh's said low in his ear, ignoring the breathless plea. The same calloused fingers that'd caressed Derek's face a moment earlier carefully gathered the cotton fabric of the teen's shirt exposing the pale flesh of the young man's abdomen. Derek froze. He could feel the smile that etched its way across Andre Beresh's rough features beneath the ski mask. "Maybe I shouldn't kill you….yet."

Derek was shifted yet again in the man's arms; and once again the urge to vomit bit at the back of his throat. He wanted to think, but the thoughts beginning to form where worse than if they'd just shot him in the head all those minutes ago.

He flinched as Beresh's hard, dry fingers scraped roughly along the top of his boxers that rode just above the waist of his jeans. "Please," he breathed again, "let me go."

He didn't care anymore that they were going to execute him on film. He just wanted Beresh's hands off of his body; his breath far away from his ear and the heat of his body gone from his back.

"I don't think so." A finger dipped just below the elastic of the boxers before the hand quickly scraped roughly up his stomach to his chest. Derek's skin burned where trails of scratch marks now marred his pale flesh. "You could make me a lot of money."

The rough, dry pads of Andre's index finger and thumb suddenly attached themselves to one if the teen's nipples—squeezing, pulling and twisting in a single harsh movement. Derek bit at his lip again in a failed attempt to keep the gasp of surprise and grunt of pain that escaped him from passing his lips. Tears begged to be shed at the corners of his closed blue eyes. The fingers let go of his now erect nipple as quickly as they'd seized it. "Perhaps I will keep you. Bring you back to my country."

"No. Please," Derek murmured—dead in the U.S. was a far better choice than being raped, sold and whatever else the sick man had in mind for him outside of the U.S.

Beresh rasped a laugh in the youth's ear. "Something…"

Whatever else Beresh was going to say was abruptly cut off by an explosion. The hand rubbing slow, forceful circles on his chest was quickly extracted and he was shoved hard forward. He could smell the still damp blood of the first hostage that had been killed as he was held just above the smeared stain. The gunman that had been just off to the side jabbed a pistol harshly into the back of his skull, and oddly enough he felt relieved. The hands promising public molestation and threatening to do worse than merely kill him were gone. He didn't want to die, but he didn't want to become someone's slave more.

The sounds in the terminal had become chaotic as both the terrorists and hostages shouted in fear and surprise at the explosion that had rocked their pocketed world, and the only thing Derek Huxley's mind was willing to register was that for the moment he was alive and no one was touching him. For the first time since walking into the hands of the terrorists he took a breath—a deep breath; an almost even breath. He was far from being calm, but far less panicked than before.

He hoped that the explosion was Jack coming to rescue everyone in the terminal.

He was still in hopeful thought when he was roughly hauled to his feet. The gunman that'd been keeping an ever watchful eye and gun on him since the explosion forced the stumbling teen away from the camera and toward the man who'd threatened to take him to another country. Bile almost burned up the back of his throat as he was forced closer to his would be molester.

Two feet away from the obviously angered Beresh, he was once more forced to the floor—and was grateful for the lack of blood smeared in a harsh stain on the tiles. He tried to stare at the white tiles of the floor when Andre's .45 was leveled at his head. Confusion bit through his sense dulled mind at Beresh's actions. He had a gun trained on the scared teen at his feet with one hand, and the information desk's telephone in the other.

Beresh punched a button on the phone and spoke into the receiver, "Jack Bauer!"

Instantly the youth tore his attention from the white tiled floor to scan the terminal for any sign of Jack. Part of him hoped that Jack would stay hidden and let the terrorist kill him. The other part hoped that Jack would come from his hiding place and place a bullet between each one of the terrorists' eyes.

"Jack Bauer!" Beresh once again bellowed into the intercom on the phone. "You have ten seconds to come out or I will shoot this boy in the head!"

Bile once again rose in the back of Derek's throat and he once again bit back the urge to throw up what little he'd eaten for breakfast that morning. He kept his eyes on the unstained floor beneath his knees in silent prayer that Jack would let them kill him. He didn't like being a bargaining chip against Jack. The lives of the people trapped in the terminal depended on Jack.

"…five…four…three…" Derek suddenly became aware of Beresh counting into the intercom.

"Beresh!" Derek's rapidly dulling mind registered Jack's voice just as his would be murderer started to say two. The teen's head quickly turned to look behind him to see Jack standing in the open, gun held loose and unthreatening in his hand. Beresh dropped the phone to the floor and turned his attention to his adversary.

Derek was torn between the sudden urge to mutter apologies and screaming at the man he'd known as Frank until almost two hours ago, but the sounds and words wouldn't form outside of his head. He watched in silence, once again trying to regain control over his rapid breathing, as one of the other terrorist's moved behind Jack with a pair of the plastic cuff like the ones binding his hands behind his back. Jack had dropped his weapon and had his hands behind his head. In one swift move the man behind Jack knocked the ex-CTU agent to his knees and placed the cuffs roughly around the agent's wrists. Derek bit back the tears of frustration and anger threatening to fall from his eyes at the sight of Jack on his knees with a gun to his head, staring straight at him.

His blue eyes were still firmly locked onto Jack's sorrow filled greens when Derek found his head tugged sharply backward by the hair. He blinked back the tears the pain the sudden sharp tug of his hair created and tried to find Jack with his limited view. Hazel green eyes, filled with hard edges and deep pools of nothingness, filled his vision. "He can't save you, boy," Andre whispered harshly in Derek's face. His world spun in one hard circle before coming to a complete halt.

He was going to have to watch this man promising him a life time of slavery in some corner of Europe he'd never be able to find on a map kill everyone in the terminal, including Jack. He swallowed hard against his fear and began to pray that Jack had some kind of plan.

Beresh leaned in closer to his prize, pressing his nose to Derek's. Derek shivered against the stare Andre was holding him in, and in fear of what the man would do to him. Andre smiled at the boy trapped in his grasp.

"Beresh," Jack warned in a low hiss from his position a few feet away. "Leave the boy alone. You have me."

Beresh's fingers abruptly let go their purchase in Derek's hair as the man stood and in one fluid movement was standing before the ex-CTU agent he'd used the boy to catch. Derek's breath hitched in his throat in fear that Beresh would shoot Jack right then.

"That explosion was you then," he said after a long moment. Jack gave a curt nod in response. "You care for the boy," Andre moved to indicate Derek before motioning his men to move Jack to the glass wall separating them from the rest of the hostages, "you would never have given yourself up so fast if you didn't."

Derek cheered inside at the get-to-your-point-already look Jack gave Beresh, only to want to kill the man as one of the other terrorists helped Beresh jerk Jack to his feet and force him back to his knees directly across from the information desk. He could feel Jack studying him—making sure that he was mostly all right. And he was. They hadn't done more than drag him around, put guns to his head, threaten to kidnap him into a sex ring and feel him up, but nothing that would leave a physical scar. He closed his eyes again.

"Let him go, Beresh," Jack said, causing Derek to snap his eyes back open. Jack was still watching him though he was speaking to Andre. "You have me. You don't need him."

"And risk you doing something stupid?" Andre scoffed at the bound man. "No, the boy stays where he is….close to me."

Jack frowned at the man, and Derek's heart threatened to pound through his chest as his breathing once again became erratic. Being the bargaining chip against Jack was one thing, but being purposely kept at his tormentor's side was too much. By Jack's side the man wouldn't touch him; he was more than certain of that. Away from the protection of his mother's would be boyfriend all bets were off on what could or would happen. Being kept by Beresh's side would keep Jack in order and allow the man easier access to steal him away. Derek dropped his gaze back to the floor.

"What were you doing hiding in here?" Boots scuffed the floor near him and Derek tensed, once again feeling as though someone where behind him. Nothing happened. Beresh did not reach down and fist his hair, or caress his cheek with the gun or press the barrel mercilessly into his head, and Derek forced himself to hold back the sigh of relief wanting to make its way from his lips. There was still time for anything to happen.

"I was coordinating the rescue from the inside…giving them your positions." Jack's voice was calm, even toned, and Derek found himself once again surprised by the man who could have been his mother's boyfriend. "Let me talk to the boy."

"Five minutes," Andre said, mouth set in a firm line as he hauled the teen to his feet. Derek was allowed a second, barely, to adjust his legs to their new position before Beresh forced him with unsteady steps toward Jack. "Say what you have to say. Make sure that he's all right and then we have business to take care of."

The only indication Jack gave the man that he'd heard was a short bob of his head. His eyes were locked on Derek, as the teen was once more forced to his knees beside him. Derek watched as Jack's eyes once more scanned over his body looking for cuts, bruises and other marks that weren't there when they'd parted ways only an hour before. "Are you all right?" he asked.

Not trusting his voice, Derek managed a slight nod of his head. The careful visual inspection, scrutinizing gaze and quiet question about his welfare was not at all what the teen had expected from Jack. He'd expected Jack to tell him how disappointed he was with him, or blame him for being caught, or even see a glint of anger and hate in the man's eyes. But none of that had happened. Jack's eyes were full of nothing more than quiet confidence and worry. Jack was not the man Derek had been afraid he was. Jack was so more than what he pretended to be.

"I'm going to get you out of this," Jack said, voice full of nothing but absolute certainty, and Derek believed him. Everything he'd seen Jack do that morning proved to him that Jack could do nothing less than what he said.

"I'm sorry." He hadn't intended to say it.

"It's all right."

"Times up," Andre Beresh announced as he approached his prized hostages. "And we have business, Mr. Bauer."

Derek turned his attention to the floor beneath his knees once again, afraid that the terrorist would suddenly decide that they had business to finish.

"Call your people and tell them to enter over there," Andre said, holding Jack's confiscated cell phone out to the man closest to him with one while pointing to the hall Jack had come from with the gun he held in the other.

"What reason do you want me to give them?" Jack asked, staring hard at the man before him.

Looking from Jack to Derek, Andre said, "you'll think of something."

"They're not to believe just anything," Jack said, turning worry filled eyes from Beresh to Derek and back to Beresh.

"You care about this boy?" he asked, reaching down to weave his fingers through Derek's blond locks. With a firm grip on the boy's satin locks, Andre gently ran the barrel of his gun along Derek's jaw in one long stroke before bringing the weapon up to rest against his temple. "You'll think of something."

Derek's lip trembled as the fingers wound through his hair pulled harder and the barrel of the weapon bit harder into the tender skin of his temple. He had to be strong for Jack, and didn't want to give the terrorist the satisfaction of knowing how painful the grip on his hair was; and how embarrassing the caress of the gun had been to him. In the months that he and his mother had known Frank…Jack, he'd never let them down—no matter how much Derek hoped Jack would.

He tried not to shudder when the fingers loosened their hold on his hair slightly to kneed at his scalp. He closed his eyes as hope that the man wouldn't touch him with Jack around washed from his body in one giant wave. He closed his eyes and did his best to bite back the urge to bawl like a baby. The only chance he had—the only chance everyone else had—was sitting, bound, next to him. There was nothing Jack could do to stop Beresh from touching him, threatening him or taking him with them.

"…I'm in a flank two position." He vaguely registered Jack's voice say into the cell phone being held to his head. "I repeat I am in a flank two position."

"Very good," Andre said, releasing his hold on Derek's hair and lowering his weapon.

Letting his butt rest against the heals of his feet, Derek allowed his chest to fall as parallel as he could manage to his thighs with the release of the fingers that were entwined in his hair. Turning his head out to see what was going on, he watched as Beresh and three other terrorists took cover near the hall and waited for Jack's unit to come charging in to their deaths. He felt sick again, and turned his head back to look back at the floor. He should have stayed in the car with his mom.

Derek tried not to count the time that had past since the terrorists had forced Jack to give the CTU unit ready to enter a deadly new entry point; tried not to think about the help that was coming to their death. It was all his fault. If he'd stayed in the car Jack would still be free to lead the rescue from the inside, instead of cuffed and forced to kill one of his units.

"I'm sorry," Derek murmured to his knees and ground. I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry, his mind repeated in quick, mantra like succession. None of the hostages were going to see their families and he was going to be dragged to God only knew where because he had to warn Jack. Tears stung at his eyes, demanding to be shed.

"Shh," hissed calmly at the panicking teen. "It'll be okay..."

"Where are they?!" Beresh demanded, weapon once again trained on Derek's head.

"It takes time to move entry points, Beresh."

"Call them. Find out how close they are." One of the other men pushed the correct buttons, thrusting the phone against Jack's ear.

"What's the ETA?" Jack asked, eyes locked onto and never leaving the terrified teen at his side.

The weapon pressing into the side of his head was heavier against the teen's cheek. Derek could feel the metal bite at the skin and grit his teeth. He wasn't afraid of the terrorists killing him anymore. He knew that they'd kill Jack first. He just wished that they'd actually threaten to kill him and mean it, not play at Jack's feelings for him or his mother by using him as the carrot on the stick to make the ex-CTU agent play nice. He also wished that he could warn Jack what Beresh's plans for him really were.

"Five minutes."

"Good." Beresh moved the gun from Derek's cheek and moved back over to where the other terrorists were waiting in ambush for the CTU team preparing to rescue the hostages and capture the bad guys.

"Derek?" He could feel Jack's worried gaze upon him, but didn't dare meet it. "Are you all right?"

The boy whimpered slightly, biting at his lip and nodding his head. "Jack," he whispered, afraid to raise his voice to a normal volume—he didn't trust that it would go any louder or hold together at all.

"It's not your fault, Derek."

"Beresh…" he paused and took a ragged breath, finally bringing his gaze up to meet Jack's, "he…earlier, he…" his mouth had run dry and the words 'he's going to take me with him' wouldn't form in his throat.

"I promise you, Derek, I won't let Beresh do anything to you."

If even the words were a lie, Derek believed the tone in Jack's voice; believed that Jack meant what he said. It was more than he'd had five minutes ago to hold onto.

The room around them exploded in a flurry of motion, cutting off any thanks Derek would have uttered. The hostages in the other room screamed and cowered lower to the floor while the terrorists waiting to lay their ambush screamed in angered frustration at Jack's trick. Derek watched in muted shock as Jack shoved him down before getting to his feet and using the broken glass of the door on the glass wall they'd been sitting against, he cut through his bonds. In one fluid motion Jack struck the nearest terrorist, knocking the armed man out and striping him of his weapon.

Across the entrance area the teen heard Beresh yell at his men. Looking in the direction he saw Beresh fire his weapon at Jack, missing both times, before leveling the gun at Derek. He closed his eyes and prayed that the bullet would miss him; that Beresh's aim would fail. He heard the hammer of a gun being drawn back and tucked his head to his chest. Seconds later a bang filled the air and Derek felt nothing. Opening his eyes slowly he sought out Jack's form, kneeling protectively close to him; gun in the ex-agent's hand still smoking.

Derek Huxley sighed and twisted his head to look at the man who'd threatened to take him with him. In the center of his forehead was a perfect hole. Blood ran from the wound in a thick river. Beresh's body lay propped against the wall, green eyes fixed and staring. Derek shivered looking away from the body.

"You all right?" Jack asked in a rush, pulling the teen to his feet and guiding him from the carnage surrounding them.

"Y-yeah," he stammered, doing his best to keep up with Jack's long gated steps.

"Give me your…" he tuned out the rest of the order Jack was giving to one of the officer's that had stormed the terminal. He was only vaguely aware of the tug at the cuffs still keeping his wrists tightly behind his back as his mind tried to being the process of figuring out the last few hours of his life. It was over. Beresh would not be taking him anywhere. He could breathe.

FIN


End file.
